2nd All Grain Batch - Still learning and got Questions!

This past Saturday I did my 2nd All Grain batch using my SQ14 burner and Keg converted Keggle.

The kit was a Victory Hop Devil kit from Austin Home Brew Supply!

As you will hear in the video, I was off on my #'s again!

When I did my first AG batch, I had NO idea how much boil off I would have with this setup. Since I wanted to end up with 5.25 gallons into the fermenter, I started out with 7.25 gallons when I did the first batch and only boiled off 1 gallon in an hour.

When I did this 2nd batch, I ended up with 6 gallons after the 1st runnings and double batch sparge so I figured I'd boil off a gallon again and end up with 5!

WRONG! ha

I ended up with 4 gallons after the 60 minute boil so I added 1 gallon of water to get to 5 in the fermenter.

I did try and keep about the same rolling boil as I did on the 1st batch.

The only 2 things I can think of is on this 2nd batch, it was a much cooler day, the wind was up so I had made a wind shield for the burner. My after thought is that the more direct heat using the shield caused more boil off?

Also, on my 1st AG batch I used 1 gallon paint strainers for each hop addition. Separate bags for each addition. The 1st batch I did had 3 oz of hops total.

This 2nd batch had 4 1/2 oz of hops total and I used 1 five gallon paint strainer hung over the side of the keggle and just added the hops when called for.

I guess I never realized how much hops expanded. After seeing how much was left over in that 5 gallon paint strainer, and I'm also wondering if the 1 gallon strainers allowed for enough utilization?

So was it the hops that absorbed more wort during the boil?

Was it the more direct heat?

Was it because there was only 6 gallons pre-boil compared to 7.5 and the smaller volume caused more boil off?

Or was it a combination of all of that?

Also as you'll hear in the video, I missed my OG.. should have been 1.068 and I ended up with 1.052. Dang it! ha

EDIT: Forgot to mention one thing.. Seems like when I do my dough in and stir stir stir, I get inconsistent temp readings on each side of the 52 qt coleman xtreme. Like it'll read 153 on the left side and 150 on the right side... And again I stir quite a bit.. Anybody else see this or am I just being too anal?

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

Thanks!

The keggle guys could probably give you a pretty accurate idea of boil off rates. However, doubling your boil off rate is unlikely so it was probably a combination of things such as more break material left on the bottom, more hops, and possibly a more intense boil like you suggested.

I'm guessing your sparge efficiency is lacking given how many points you missed by. I would recommend investing in a refractometer to get rapid readings of gravity so you know when to stop sparging. As well, I always brew to gravity not to volume. If you do this you will quickly learn your system efficiency so you will always (except that rare bad day) hit both your desired volume and gravity.

If I wasn't at work I would watch the video as I'm sure that will give others info for much better advice.

Bensiff said:

The keggle guys could probably give you a pretty accurate idea of boil off rates. However, doubling your boil off rate is unlikely so it was probably a combination of things such as more break material left on the bottom, more hops, and possibly a more intense boil like you suggested.

I'm guessing your sparge efficiency is lacking given how many points you missed by. I would recommend investing in a refractometer to get rapid readings of gravity so you know when to stop sparging. As well, I always brew to gravity not to volume. If you do this you will quickly learn your system efficiency so you will always (except that rare bad day) hit both your desired volume and gravity.

If I wasn't at work I would watch the video as I'm sure that will give others info for much better advice.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply... one thing I didn't mention that you touched on and I forgot to, was that I had a HUGE amount of cold break! I did use a whirlfloc tablet and got the temps down to 78 in about 20 minutes..

I would have already had a refractometer but my wife said I need to save some things for the birthday/Christmas lists haha

My first thought is that after only your second brew you should not expect to have dialed in your technique. Every once in a while I think that someone gets it right from day one, but usually it takes time to figure out how to best use your set up. It's also better to have 4 gallons of the right gravity wort then adding water to get to the magic 5 gallon number.

Kits to me are not ideal because as you found out not everyone has the same results so starting with a fixed set of ingredients doesn't always work out. If you are brewing outdoors, you want the flexibility of shooting for 5.5 or 6 gallon batch that equates to 5 gallons when finished with the entire process.

As to temperature variations in MT, I'd bet that most have that issue but don't check for it. If you stirred the mash and pre heated the cooler I can't think of anything you can do to fix that. Except of course move up to recirculating your mash via HERMS or RIMS.

Good luck with future brews.

I've usually hit very close to my OG throughout my (6 batch) all grain brewing experience. I just brewed an AHS kit (Special Bitter) and nailed it. I think hitting and maintaining your mash temp is a big factor. I preheat my MLT and, after mashing in and getting the temp dialed in, I wrap the MLT in a couple of blankets. After an hour, I've never dropped more than 1 degree. I NEVER open the MLT during that mash hour.

The other thing is nice, slow lautering. I take a good 20 minutes for my first runnings, then batch sparge, stir, and let it sit for a good 15 minutes. It's possible you're draining the mash too quickly and not maximizing your efficiency. I don't do conversion testing, but I do dump in a Tsp of 5.2 into the mash just to make sure I've got a good pH.

Keep trying....your beer will taste fine, but you'll have to drink more of it to get the proper buzz level. Not a bad thing IMHO.

Because boil-off can be fairly unpredictable, I usually keep a pot with a gallon or two or pre-boiled water ready for the end of the boil. If I am below my target volume by a couple of quarts, I just top off with the pre-boiled water and then chill it all. I usually aim to just slightly undershoot for this reason, as obviously you can't do anything about overshooting your volume.

jakecpunut said:

Thanks for the reply... one thing I didn't mention that you touched on and I forgot to, was that I had a HUGE amount of cold break! I did use a whirlfloc tablet and got the temps down to 78 in about 20 minutes..

I would have already had a refractometer but my wife said I need to save some things for the birthday/Christmas lists haha

Click to expand...

Tell her you need an early present . Whirlfloc does generate massive break no doubt.

samc said:

My first thought is that after only your second brew you should not expect to have dialed in your technique. Every once in a while I think that someone gets it right from day one, but usually it takes time to figure out how to best use your set up. It's also better to have 4 gallons of the right gravity wort then adding water to get to the magic 5 gallon number.

Kits to me are not ideal because as you found out not everyone has the same results so starting with a fixed set of ingredients doesn't always work out. If you are brewing outdoors, you want the flexibility of shooting for 5.5 or 6 gallon batch that equates to 5 gallons when finished with the entire process.

As to temperature variations in MT, I'd bet that most have that issue but don't check for it. If you stirred the mash and pre heated the cooler I can't think of anything you can do to fix that. Except of course move up to recirculating your mash via HERMS or RIMS.

Good luck with future brews.

Click to expand...

That's good advice! My 1st AG and my last BIAB AG were both awesome and they were a little off haha.. I guess I need to look at the final results and just take my time and learn the system... I guess I just want to make sure I'm not doing something that's way off....

jturie said:

I've usually hit very close to my OG throughout my (6 batch) all grain brewing experience. I just brewed an AHS kit (Special Bitter) and nailed it. I think hitting and maintaining your mash temp is a big factor. I preheat my MLT and, after mashing in and getting the temp dialed in, I wrap the MLT in a couple of blankets. After an hour, I've never dropped more than 1 degree. I NEVER open the MLT during that mash hour.

The other thing is nice, slow lautering. I take a good 20 minutes for my first runnings, then batch sparge, stir, and let it sit for a good 15 minutes. It's possible you're draining the mash too quickly and not maximizing your efficiency. I don't do conversion testing, but I do dump in a Tsp of 5.2 into the mash just to make sure I've got a good pH.

Keep trying....your beer will taste fine, but you'll have to drink more of it to get the proper buzz level. Not a bad thing IMHO.

Click to expand...

I've been doing really good on my mash temps... other than the ? about differences in a degree or 2 from different areas of the grain bed. My tun holds temps very well...

One thing you touched on is the slow lautering.. That's another thing I've read about.. some folks say they let it go slow during the vorlauf and then wide open for the sparge... Maybe that's one thing I need to try, slow the sparge down to see if I get better conversion?

I'm doing the same thing on the PH, just started this last batch. I don't have a tester so I just bought the 5.2 stabilizer and gonna start using it on every batch!

Thanks!!

kevmoron said:

Because boil-off can be fairly unpredictable, I usually keep a pot with a gallon or two or pre-boiled water ready for the end of the boil. If I am below my target volume by a couple of quarts, I just top off with the pre-boiled water and then chill it all. I usually aim to just slightly undershoot for this reason, as obviously you can't do anything about overshooting your volume.

Click to expand...

yeah that's something I definitely need to start doing, having extra H2O on hand ready to go!

Was your OG reading taken before you topped off w/ a gallon of water?

DustBow said:

Was your OG reading taken before you topped off w/ a gallon of water?

Click to expand...

No... I've thought about that and wished I had.. I'm sure it would have been higher before adding the 1 gallon of water... wonder how much different that would have made?

If I had taken a reading and it was spot on, I guess I could have left it at 4 gallons.. but I'd rather have an extra gallon at a slightly less ABV...

might have made a pretty big difference - you essentially increased your wort volume by 25%
But I understand wanting to get 5 gallons in the fermenter, it's really frustrating to come out low after all that time and effort. And your OG isn't that low in the grand scheme of things, final beer just won't be quite as potent. Love me some Hop Devil

I was looking over my notes at lunch and realized I had another question that I had forgot to ask in the original post...

My mash temps were 150 and I didn't lose any heat after the 60 minutes...

When I did my double batch sparge, my plan was to heat up 2 gallons of water to 175 for the 1st sparge, thinking that would bring my mash up to 168. I'm pretty sure that's how I had it configured in BeerSmith.

One thing I DIDN'T do is take the temp of my grain bed after the 1st runnings. I'm trying to think of how much time lapsed between the vorlauf and adding my 1st sparge... I'm "thinking" around 15 minutes total?

After I added the 175 degree water for the first batch sparge, stirred well, then I checked the temps it was at 152 ???

I let it sit 10 minutes and then vorlauf and drained the 1st sparge.

The 2nd 2 gallons of sparge water I heated to 168 degrees and added it and got the same thing after stirring.. around 152 ??? Also let sit for 10 minutes and then vorlauf and drain.

Am I missing something here? Should I have went higher with my sparge water temps??

Looks like the yeast slurry I pitched from the previous batch did a good job! After 8 days in Primary I siphoned to secondary to dry hop, check the gravity and it was at 1.010. Lower than expected!! Sample tasted really good!

Looks like I'm getting my pipeline cranked up... finally! Need to order another faucet for the kegerator!

First thing is that your SQ-14 is designed to be used with a flat bottomed pot. By using a convexed bottom converted keg, your heat transference wont be as good. By making up the wind shield, you compensated for a lot of the heat loss you would see without it in place. Did you cut out the shield where your air shutter was to adjust the burner correctly?

The keggle should evaporate roughly 1.5 gals an hour with a nice rolling boil. There is no need to boil the wort so hard it looks like a volcanic eruption.

I'm not sure about Austin's Numbers for efficiency when they formulate their recipes for their kits, but if you know their batch size and figure 70% that is the norm for recipes from these homebrew supplies.
If you don't have your own mill, you may want to ask them to run your malts through twice or set the crush a little finer when batch sparging to get higher efficiency.

When you hear someone speaking of going slow when they first start their vorlauf, that is to set the grainbed without compacting it. Once the runnings start to run clear, you can open up your valve and let it drain as fast as it will. Speed doesn't matter when batch sparging. Stirring the mash well when adding sparge additions is the important part.

As far as the original mash temps and the sparge water temp is concerned. You are looking to increase the grainbed temp toward mashout of 168*F. If you have a grainbed with over 10 pounds that was 150* saach rest temp, you could use 195* first dose of sparge water, and I doubt your grainbed would rise above 165* You could probably just heat the total sparge water amount to around 190*F and still be under 170* grainbed temp on the second sparge.